


Candles, incense and death

by bluekidneys



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Memories, One Shot, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:01:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22768189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluekidneys/pseuds/bluekidneys
Summary: Kabuto has bad memories after finishing alone without someone looking at him, reduced to ashes.
Relationships: Orochimaru/Yakushi Kabuto
Kudos: 14





	Candles, incense and death

**Author's Note:**

> Short work, I liked it so much that I thought about editing some details and publishing it:)

It was night, or perhaps in the blinding meridian. I did not know it, days or nights in full sail. Caught between labyrinthine corridors like a snake in full motion, walls imitating scales to molt. At one time to another, the fire consumed, burned and reduced to nothing.

Moments of anxiety and growing anguish when he saw the inert body on the floor of that room, the great icy white snake with a strange expression on his face. Kabuto looked at everything in an overwhelming impression state, without being able to assimilate the sensation, so similar when Mother died in ignorance based on long-term tricks. That sense of obsession to remain accompanied by someone to follow, someone who could not protect.

He extracted the essence of Sannin over several days. Gradually, drop after drop as thick ink contained in a jar.

Every drop he used to satisfy what the fire consumed.

"This isn't me ...", he expressed bitterly between painful gasps, Orochimaru's vitality was worthy of appreciation even in _death_. In that infinite limbo, a repetitive vortex; typical of an illusion or nightmare. "This isn't the real me ..."

[...]

Kabuto wandered with the texture of scales on the skin of his arms, lighting was poor. Almost so depressing, so dark. The elegant hiss rose to his ears, the absurd amount of white snakes and other colors followed what his master's blood seemed to have, in a tired figure.

He could not help heading almost by inertia to his room and, by a feeling, looked at Orochimaru's at the end of the hall. Not so far from his, the door was open, and lay a long path of dried blood to the laboratory. He decided to follow that path, with unstable beats throughout his body, almost in recognition of where the blood was injected.

The room still had the vestiges of a battle, that same blood was frightfully scattered on the wall, the white sheets and the floor in a great indelible mark. The candles were about to be consumed, the incense was just ashes, looking like ebony gunpowder.

A hidden feeling told him to approach the dirty sheets, touching the silky texture with his fingertips. Bowing respectfully, not knowing why, he remained hieratic until his knees slid slowly and surely, lying on the cloth. Filling the void to whom it belonged, and unable to assimilate it, several memories of the past returned without their consent. Good memories, and some other bad ones.

Some when Sound was born, and established itself as a promising village.

Or that day in which, kneeling on his crouches, long, thin pale fingers extended to place his forehead protector with the sound badge. With great reason to be proud to belong to the nation he founded alongside the Sannin and his loyalty intact.

Or another, nasty. As in situations like these, what would Kabuto do without Orochimaru? What would you do without someone to follow? Someone who is to look at him, someone.

[...]

_Are sweet and sometimes sour aromas of the incense that gave off the scented smoke. The room was wrapped in the smell of aromatic flowers and wood of the same species; matching the candles with tears of wax about to burn, the flame danced from side to side, irregularly. The room abandoned its touch of gloomy colors for warmer and more pleasant ones. Being underground had its benefits as well as disadvantages, the weather could become extreme. A scorching heat or a cold winter, able to make them freeze to the bone._

_Only those aromas are able to eliminate, even for a moment, the rotten stench of the body that lies behind him. In a deep breath, about to eliminate his choked breath, covered in thick sheets of white so pure and dirty of his own blood, memories of his ceaseless gradual death. With his midnight hair, scattered in messy brushstrokes over the padded pillow. His view focused on the different points of lights around him, candles of all sizes and colors, in addition to the rods in ornamental jars, with gold accents._

_There was Kabuto, who lit each one with severe serenity. Although, every alert remained rooted in his mind, his concerns also of course. It was reasonable to take preventive measures when the rot spread over your lungs, causing them to work forcefully. Out of breath, panting in pain. That same pain kept him alert, along with bluish radiation and some herbs as a medicine heightened his regret. Cursing poisonous every time he had a chance._

_"Kabuto, Kabuto ..." Orochimaru called gutturally, feeling the effort of his lungs to make his thoughts sonic. "Where the hell is Sasuke? Forget the damn candles, this is killing me with pain. Breathing becomes almost impossible."_

_"Depending on whether my predictions are correct," he adjusted his glasses, reflecting the flames in them. Still turning his back on Orochimaru, feeling the act like rudeness. "It won't take more than a couple of hours, I can assure you."_

_"Do you think I'll wait two hours or more?" He replied angrily, feeling helpless thanks to the overwhelming pain in his arms and lungs._

_"You can get another container, if there are no options in time," Kabuto suggested cautiously, feeling the penetrating gaze behind him. "Your body will not resist any longer, Lord Orochimaru."_

_The doctor believed that the conversation would continue in a dispute, among the most pragmatic views. But no, Orochimaru was holding his breath, he began to cough violently, expelling the deepest exclamations. One of his hands, weakly placed it to cushion his ruin, it was discouraging to see stains of withered brown on his fingers wrapped in bandages. He didn't have a mirror around him; but it was not necessary to know that he looked terrible. His skin had acquired a greenish, sick and weak appearance. Vulnerable in his punishment for trying to carry out his objectives, however, now that his arms were in the depths of death, totally useless._

_Without meditating longer, Kabuto agreed to spread the healing chakra over his arms and chest. Forgetting the candles in place, that would stop the pain for the next few minutes uninterruptedly, in addition to preparing as soon as possible a mixture of herbs that he collected on each of his trips to other nations. Some of the Hidden Sound itself, in foreign lands like the Leaf in its role that should make it work._

_Crushed dried herbs, about to finish with a texture similar to ashes, which left the sticks of incense. He placed them in a medium glass and, with a kettle with water, poured the contents. Mixing them in a homogeneous mixture, at this point it could no longer be distinguished from what the medicine was made; with a foul, stale and bitter smell of what were once tender herbs. Even Kabuto felt disgusted, hiding in a veil of absolute seriousness from a doctor to his dying patient._

_He knows that Kabuto would be unable to place poisons in his drink._

_Who drank everything, with an unpleasant taste. Weakly, waiting for the dose to act as soon as possible and decrease the flames of him scented arms. It's an orthodox ritual, medicines are always punctual when he need them. A few moments when he can forget the curses and other negative thoughts._

_"Take it."_

_And so he concluded, disgustingly, holding his breath so as not to expel the concoction. Lately, Orochimaru has also had difficulty feeding or simply drinking drinks. His stomach has no strength, and Kabuto can only feel anguish with each failure._

_"What would you do if you didn't find an available container, Kabuto?" Orochimaru asked questioningly._

_It is not the first and only time he will ask such things. No, Orochimaru knows that he is about to cross that delicate membrane to the side he would hate to cross. He knows that he is not quite capable of crossing there, but in any case, taking refuge in his mind; he always have ideas that he want to clarify. And what better with a mind capable of complementing theirs by being molded since they agreed to belong to the Sound. Orochimaru has never said it directly, but his hands before being useless and his words with plenty of encouragement were enough to change a young mind towards its objectives, a vulnerable mind and susceptible to being what it needs to be._

_Kabuto, meanwhile, cleaned the inside of the glass when it was entrusted to him. Slowly, eliminating contamination from previous use with a small cloth. He heard it clearly without the need for Orochimaru to have to repeat it and, he knows it by his lost gaze._

_"Kabuto, I said ..." he declared harshly._

"I heard it clearly, Lord Orochimaru," he replied mechanically, placed the glass on the nightstand and cleaned his hands.

"So?" Orochimaru insisted, coughing dryly, removing his hair from his face, "it's not a complicated question, you're more than able to answer."

_One of his biggest fears has already lost Mother. Kabuto feared allowing himself in solitude with no one who was to mold his mind. Nonou never molded that mind, or not intentionally. It is relatively curious to mention how both are prey to long-term manipulation, Kabuto did not need photographs for it._

_"Hundreds of subordinates want to be your container, you will have where to choose from the bunch the best," he recalled with his eyes fixed on the Sannin. "Even if it is not the Uchiha, its possibilities are not finished. Even, I can be its container."_

_Given the latter, Orochimaru slowly denied._

_"No, no ..." he hissed weakly, even with small hints of confusion. "You'll never be my container, I need you here with me, right hand."_

_"Should I be more realistic than your current condition?" He dared to ask irreverently, almost laughing._

_"Look at the incense," he said and Kabuto did it without understanding the intention, "it's slowly consuming ... just like me."_

_Kabuto's attention turned sharply towards Orochimaru, frowning in total disagreement. Almost burning with words, he would not bear such a possibility. Orochimaru was immortal, immortal and there was no reason to reach that point or even be sealed to reach a state similar to death._

_"The fire is like the pain" Kabuto closed both fists with regret and Orochimaru did not go unnoticed, "walking towards the wand, releasing his perfume from what he burned. Irreversibly like these useless arms that Tsunade refused to extinguish . "_

_"I hate your philosophy but I'll heal those arms" Kabuto refuted, exasperated._

_"The fire, the supposed will of fire does nothing but consume ourselves, Kabuto, you haven'_ _t answered my question," he pointed out sharply, hiding his gaze between long endless strands._

_The will of the root that they abandoned a long time ago, in Sound, does the will of the snakes be summed up only to rebirth? So what is beyond if there is no such opportunity to be reborn?_

_Kabuto is not the type of person capable of losing his temper, always so calculating and analytical with his own emotions. Without allowing them to express them but experiencing that. For this reason, he remained in the deepest silence of all, holding the utensils of the glass and what he used to crush the herbs in his hands. Ready to look for that new container, he propagated that fire in Mother and was unable to eliminate even the smallest flame._

_"Will you wait for the Uchiha?" He asked contemptuously, taking the tray with him._

_"It's the safest" he replied with an enigmatic smile, mocked by his reactions._

_Kabuto did not bother to respond at all, besides having the privilege of not bowing to each moment in his presence. He simply left the room with the utensils on the tray, pushing the door with his shoulders._

_Orochimaru looked at the rods, the discussion went on so long that dozens of them were just ashes on the ground, twinkling ashes. His arms shuddered at the apex of ephemeral pain, whispering new curses loaded with poison._

[...]

_It is a lousy reminder to see the ashes on the floor, placed in a circle throughout the room. A faithful and bad memory that Kabuto, if he has no one to follow, is nobody. Consuming to nothing like candles and incense._

**Author's Note:**

> it's all, small impressions about Orochimaru and Kabuto


End file.
